


won't wash away

by myeyesarenotblue



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Body Swap, Gen, Klaus and Ben swap bodies babey!, Pre-Canon, no beta we die like ben
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-21
Updated: 2020-02-21
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:20:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22828588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myeyesarenotblue/pseuds/myeyesarenotblue
Summary: This is not Ben’s body.It’s too pale, too lanky, too hairy. This is not his body. Which- he isn’t even all that surprised anymore, all things considered. So he magically came back to life, so what? So he’s somehow inhabiting someone else's’ body, so what? It’s cool, it’s cool.
Comments: 37
Kudos: 112





	won't wash away

**Author's Note:**

> almost seven thousand fics and not a single one of them is a body swap au smh

Ben comes to with a gasp. 

He feels empty. He feels overwhelmingly empty, and not in the sad and depressing sort of way. It’s just a general feeling of uneasiness, a sense of knowing something’s missing- 

He can’t pinpoint exactly what it is for the longest minute, no daring to open his eyes. He’s isn’t even awake all the way, yet. All he knows is that there’s some deep instinct, some urge desperately yelling and yelling, willing him to understand something’s not right, something’s fundamentally wrong, fundamentally different. He doesn’t know what it is. 

But then, but then- 

He lunges. Shots up until he’s sitting upright and not laying down anymore, because he honest to god can’t concentrate on anything at all when he’s buried in sheets and covers and comforters. 

Three very important things occur to him. 

One. This is not his bedroom. 

Not his, or anyone else’s he can recognize, anyway. He’s pretty certain he’s not in the academy in any way, shape, or form. Not a motel, either. It’s a bedroom. It’s a bedroom and this bedroom’s tiny, cramped- stinks of piss and weed and god-knows-what else. 

He doesn’t know where he is. 

Two. The Horror- 

The thing, the creature- the Horror isn’t there. Just- 

Not there. 

Gone. 

He feels empty, because the Horror isn’t there. 

It’s almost impossible to make sense of the feeling- the feeling of being completely and utterly alone for the very first time since he can remember. No archaic whispering in the back of his mind begging him to taste blood _._ No impending feeling of doom or dread or hunger, no overwhelming need to lash out and destroy and maim and kill everything and anything that moves. Nothing. 

Just quiet. 

Three. 

What was number three, again? He can barely remember what it is, what with the intense panicking and heavy breathing. Because okay, alright, he doesn’t know where he is and he doesn’t know where the Horror is and what the hell was number three, anyway? He can’t be expected to keep up with all these weird realizations- 

He takes a deep breath. 

Oh, yeah. 

Three. 

Three. 

Ben’s alive. 

He’s alive and breathing. Heartbeat beating a steady _thump, thump, thump_ \- blood rushing through his veins, warm and painfully alive. 

Ben’s alive. 

He- 

He’s been dead for almost ten years now, ghostly and pale and bored out of his mind. With no heartbeat and no blood and no warmth, no life. He’s dead. 

He’s supposed to be dead. 

Why isn’t he- 

His head hurts. 

His stomach hurts. 

He feels like he’s going to pass the fuck out. 

And he- _fuck,_ he hasn’t felt pain in any way, any intensity at all in almost ten years now, and he’s just so not ready to deal with whatever the hell’s going on plus the headache and the stomachache and the general feeling of nausea and dizziness and- 

Something shifts beside him. 

Ben doesn’t even think, he kicks the blankets off him as quickly as humanly possible and bolts upwards and away from the bed. There’s a giant lump of blankets and sheets, squirming and moving and shifting, and to Ben’s utter horror, after some awkward wiggling, the lump turns into a someone. 

A head pokes out! 

Just a random guy, blonde and scruffy looking, frowning with some intense level of hatred at the few rays of sunlight streaming through the room’s tiny window. He turns to look at Ben, regards him. “Hey, you leaving already?” 

A beat passes. 

The guys stares, expectantly. 

“Uh,” Ben says, smartly. He’s really confused. 

The guy shrugs, a self-deprecating motion, maybe a little resentful. Ben doesn’t understand why he’d have any business feeling resentful towards him. “Suit yourself, I guess. You know where’s the door if you want to leave so badly- but I’m telling you I make a mean Osso Buco and you're gonna regret not trying it.” 

Ben’s- 

Ben’s really confused. He thinks he might be gaping, opening his mouth and closing it back up. There’s something he’s not getting, here. “What?” 

“Osso Buco?” The guy repeats, all matter of factly, as he sits up on the bed and stretches lazily. “You know, the thing I told you about last night?” 

If there’s one thing Ben knows for certain, now, is that this man did not tell him anything at all, about anything, last night. He’s never met this dude before. And there’s- there’s a lot of questions, alright? And Ben doesn’t know where to start. 

So, he settles on the easiest one. “What the hell is Osso Buco?” 

The man starts talking. 

Huffing some indignant noises and blabbering on and on about Osso Buco and Italian cuisine and true connoisseurs like him, because apparently people are ungrateful jerks and nobody knows just how to appreciate a grand cook, _the_ grand cook- 

Ben tunes him out, after two sentences. 

He really couldn’t give a damn about Osso Buco, or Italian cuisine, or about that one time someone didn’t like the Osso Buco and they had to be punched and forcefully removed from the guy’s home. He couldn’t give a damn. Ben’s thoughts are stuck on a loop, repeating his own words. 

_What the hell is Osso Buco?_

When he spoke, it felt- different. 

And not just alive-different, no- his voice felt different, higher, deeper, different. Not all that unfamiliar, though, just- alien, somehow, when coming from his own throat. A voice he’s heard a thousand times, a voice he’s used to hearing all day, every day, pretty much the only voice that ever speaks to him, these days. Ben knows that voice, and it isn’t his. 

A thought occurs to him. 

He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath. 

He doesn’t know where he is. 

The Horror is gone. 

He’s alive. 

What’s one more weird thing, right? 

He opens his eyes back up, looks down slowly, almost fearfully. Yeah- 

Yeah, okay. 

He’s half naked, wearing nothing but a pair of bright pink boxer briefs sporting a mysterious stain he does not want to think about too closely- not his, definitely not his. And the body- 

This is not Ben’s body. 

It’s too pale, too lanky, too hairy. This is not his body. Which- he isn’t even all that surprised anymore, all things considered. So he magically came back to life, so what? So he’s somehow inhabiting someone else's’ body, so what? It’s cool, it’s cool. 

There’s just one more question that needs answering- 

Whose fucking body is this? 

Ben sighs. 

He has a stinking suspicion he already knows the answer and he knows for a fact he’s not gonna like it one bit. He sighs, again. Better rip off the band aid. He lifts up his right hand up to his face, slowly twists it around until the palm is facing him. Oh. 

Oh. Yeah, that’s what he thought- 

_(Hello)._

He lifts it up the left one, checks it over. 

_(Goodbye)._

Ben stares at his open palms for maybe a second too long, gaping, gawking, helplessly staring at a pair of hands that are not his own. He doesn’t have a single clue of what the fuck’s going on. Nothing. Nothing at all. Is this a new power? Hijacking bodies? 

Hijacking his _brother’s_ body? 

Because Ben knows this body. He recognizes it, alright- he'd know those gangly limbs and skeletal ribs absolutely anywhere, and the tattoos really do sell the whole thing. 

_(Hello). (Goodbye)._

This is Klaus’ body. 

Ben whimpers as loudly as he dares to, snaps his eyes tightly shut. This- this raises yet another question. Where the fuck is Klaus? He has to be somewhere around, right? He can’t have just upped and disappeared into the void, or whatever, right? He- 

He has to be somewhere. 

He has to. 

Ben decides, right there and then, he needs to find his brother. He turns on his heel, walks towards the tiny bedroom’s wide-open door and slips outside into a hallway. He can hear the Osso Buco Guy getting up and running after him. “Hey, where are- are you even listening to me?” 

Ben ignores him. 

He needs to find Klaus. 

The hallway is thin and narrow and when Ben follows it blindly and ends up standing in a tiny living room lined up with tiny couches and far more scattered glitter than is probably socially acceptable, he realizes yet another thing. He’s in Klaus’ body, and the Horror is gone- 

Does that mean he’s got Klaus’ power now? Bye-bye eldritch monster, hello wailing spirits? That’s probably what it means. 

It would explain the kid, standing in the corner, with a crushed spine, and bloody forehead, and tire tracks on his jumper. A ghost. Ben’s used to ghosts, after years and years and years of being one himself. But this ghost? Watching him, it feels- 

It feels different. There’s no brief glance, no subtle nod, no mutual understanding of _hey, you’re dead and I’m dead- we're both dead, how is it going?_

The one and only thing in this ghost’s face is an expression of pure _hatred_. 

“Uh, hi?” Ben tries, and ignores the way the Osso Buco Guy frowns and sniggers, crosses his arms over his chest and mutters something about heroin and hallucinations. 

The ghost- 

The ghost stands there, quietly. 

Ben steps forward, “Hey, are you- are you okay?” 

And he’d usually be all for ignoring the hell out of any random people existing around him- alive _or_ dead, but he really doesn’t like the way this kid is looking at him, and besides- how old is he, anyway? Eight? Nine? And with most of his ribs poking out of his chest out already? 

The kid opens his mouth, big, and wide, and mildly terrifying. 

Ben tilts his head to the side, stares. 

He doesn’t think he likes where this is going. 

A second goes by, then two, then three, and then the kid’s _screaming-_ lurching forward, clawing with bloody fingernails, a deranged look in his eyes. 

Ben stumbles backwards, startled. 

He ends up knocking his back against the Osso Buco Guy’s side, being held upright by him. “Whoa!” the guy gushes, in between breathy laughter. “Now I know why you weren’t paying attention. Did you take something else while I was sleeping?” 

“What?” 

The ghost won’t stop screaming, uselessly attempting to punch and rip and maim which ever part of Ben’s he can reach. He’s not corporeal. 

A snort, “You got anything left?” 

_“What?”_

“Oh, don’t tell me you don’t share.” 

Ben shakes his head side to side, does his damnedest to ignore the ghost’s wailing. “I- I need to find my brother” he announces, to the room at large. He turns on his heel and walks back into the bedroom, because it seems to him that Klaus just isn’t anywhere near and he can’t walk out into the street to go look for him while wearing nothing but the world’s most ridiculous briefs. 

“Your brother?” Osso Buco Guy echoes, following him, frowning. The ghost follows, too. “Was he with you last night? I didn’t see him.” 

“Yeah,” Ben says, absentmindedly, “Yeah, we’re always together.” The guy’s bedroom is a mess, strewn clothing all around. He stares at it, and decides to hell with it, he doesn’t care- he picks up whatever and puts it on, some ill-fitting jeans and a hoodie with a large logo on it he can’t recognize. 

The Osso Buco Guy makes some whining noise, almost petulant. “So you’re gonna leave me hanging for someone you’re always with? C’mon, man, I’m sure your brother won’t mind if you stay for a little while.” 

Ben shakes his head, pushes past him to get to the bedroom’s door. “I need to find him.” 

There’s a hand on his bicep, firm and strong, stopping him from leaving. 

Ben tenses. 

It’s- 

He thinks this might be the very first time he tenses and the Horror doesn’t tense right back, ready to protect and fight and kill. He’s on his own, here. Alone. 

Ben lifts up his head very slowly, tries not to show the fact he might or might not be scared as fuck at the mere thought of a slim possibility of having to fend for himself, no personal body guard whatsoever, “What?” he spits, cold and daring. 

The guy’s fingers tighten. 

The ghost lets out a particularly loud shriek. 

The seconds stretch out, heavy and tense, and Ben holds his stare on the guy’s eyes, never wavering, unmoving, doing the impossible not to flinch away from the ghost’s continuous attacks. 

“The least you could do is share some of whatever you had, you know,” Osso Buco Guy says, very slowly. 

Ben laughs incredulously. “I don’t even-” 

The ghost _screams_. 

And, to Ben’s utter horror, he starts speaking, spitting out unintelligible mumbled words that grow louder and louder by the second, more vicious. “It’s your fault!” he screams, “I’m dead and it’s your fault! You did this!” 

Ben startles, jumps half a foot up in the air. 

Osso Bucco Guy laughs, all mocking and nearly cruel, “Jesus, you’re spent, dude. What was it? Molly?” 

“What- no, what the hell?” 

The ghost opens his mouth wide again, and Ben starts to suspect it was broken, the moment when he died, torn apart. “You killed me! You left me to die!” 

“Acid, then?” 

“You’re a murderer!” 

“Look, I don’t even care what it was, man. I just need a little something.” 

“A killer!” 

“You stayed the night, it’s the least you could do.” 

_“You killed me! You killed me! You killed me!”_

“Shut up!” Ben blurts, wide eyed. 

To his surprise, both of them really do shut up. 

Briefly. 

There’s a whole two seconds of silence there that Ben eats up gladly. 

But then Osso Buco Guy starts scoffing, and then the ghost resumes his senseless screaming, and then Ben remembers he really, really, needs to find Klaus. He breathes in, breathes out, walks back out of the bedroom and into the hallway, into the living room, looks wildly around until he finds something that resembles a front door- 

“Seriously,” Osso Buco Guy keeps saying, “Seriously, man. You can’t just-” and then Ben can’t hear a single word because the ghost keeps shrieking, repeating again and again and again and again the exact same words, over and over. 

_You killed me._

Ben grimaces, goes to do the smart thing and ignore them both, leave, but then he sort of realizes something- 

That ghost- 

Those accusations aren’t for him, are they? 

He frowns, probably interrupts, “Wait,” he blurts, horrified, and suddenly he’s looking at that poor kid in a different light. He gapes at Osso Buco Guy, incredulous. “You ran a kid over and just left him there?” 

Osso Buco Guy visibly pales, steps back a couple steps. 

The ghost goes eerily quiet. 

“Shit,” Ben says, “Shit, you did.” 

Osso Buco Guy shakes his head, whimpers, “No, no, I-” 

“Yeah, yeah, you did. A little kid, brunette, wearing a yellow jumper.” 

“How did you know that?” 

Ben shrugs. 

“It was an accident!” he shrieks, wide open eyes. “I- I didn’t mean to, I didn’t see him and then he just-” 

“Yeah,” Ben breathes, somewhat rudely. “Yeah, sure, man.” 

“I was drunk! I didn’t-” 

Ben huffs out, steps back, and swings open the door, goes to step out- 

“No, hey!” Osso Bucco Guy blurts, reaching but not touching. “You can’t just leave like that, dude! You-” he lowers his tone, almost hissing, “You can’t tell anyone.” 

“Maybe I will.” 

But not really. 

He doesn’t know the guy’s name, nor the ghost’s name. 

And then- 

Osso Bucco Guy grabs him again, both hands clutched tight against Ben’s shoulders, a steel grip, tight enough to bruise. “You can’t tell anyone.” 

“Let go of me,” Ben says, calmly, and he puffs out his chest on instinct but the Horror isn’t there. 

“Promise you won’t tell.” 

Ben breathes in a very, very slow breath. 

This is exactly like every time Klaus somehow manages to get himself in trouble and instead of acting like a responsible human being with even the barest hint of self-preservation instincts, he opens his mouth and makes everything a hundred times worse. Ben often- _judges_ him, for that. Calls him out. 

But he thinks he’s beginning to understand the people Klaus usually hangs around with aren’t all that difficult to rile up, piss off. Worse yet- 

_They deserve it._

Ben scoffs, almost smiles. 

He’s all too aware the smart thing here would be to nod along and pinky promise he won’t tell anyone he knows the guy hit a kid with his car and made a run for it, even if it’d physically pain him to do it. But- 

He’s just not in the mood. 

He shrugs the guy’s hands off him with a smooth movement, a roll of the shoulders, and before he can fully process the choice he’s made, he’s bringing his knee up and into the guy’s stomach. 

“Ow, fuck, shit,” the guy gushes, clutching his middle, but then- but then it’s like some fight or flight instinct kicks into motion in his head, and Ben watches, almost dazedly, as Osso Buco Guy clenches a hand into a fist and brings it up, up, up- 

He punches Ben in the face. 

Hard. 

He’s wearing a ring. 

Ben feels the thing collide with his cheekbone, sharp pain blossoming, and when he brings his hands up to touch, his fingers come off bloody and wet. A good amount of blood, too, enough that maybe the cut won’t heal on its own without stitches. 

This is _so_ not helping the headache, Ben thinks. 

Osso Buco Guy stares into his bloody face, and bloody palm, staring dumbly, stupefied. 

“What the hell, dude,” Ben deadpans, tiredly. 

Osso Buco Guy shuts the door in his face. 

Ben sighs. 

He needs to find Klaus. 

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on tumblr @myeyesarenotblue


End file.
